Critic Reviews

As depicted in I Was an Atomic Mutant!, the goal is simple: crush and destroy. Yet, you’d be surprised how much thought goes into my work: exploiting the incendiary nature of cars and gas tanks, for example, or looking for power-ups and disintegrating puny tanks, jet fighters, and stealth bombers before their artillery can halt my misunderstood deeds. All that’s missing is a multiplayer mode, but given IWAAM’s sub-$20 price, I can’t complain. Take it from a colossal floating brainstem: this game is a probing look at the atomic mutant lifestyle. So, until my devastating fury rips you asunder, I bid you adieu.

After playing I Was an Atomic Mutant, a movie monster action title developed by Canopy Games, I’ve decided on a new policy for myself. I’m not going to spend longer reviewing a game than I did playing it. Now, if I were a slow writer, then that could present a problem, especially since I review a lot of adventures, and the over-under for adventures is in the neighborhood of eight hours. But I’ve been writing reviews for a while now, and I can usually pump one of these things out in 2-3 hours.

On the outside, I Was an Atomic Mutant seems wildly successful at staying true to its subject matter. It has funny, great-looking menus, clever cinematics, an incredible original score, and lots of little details perfectly suited to its subject matter: 1950s giant monster movies. It's easy to become so charmed by the game's presentation (and the game's $20 price tag) that you start to forget that somewhere in this otherwise entertaining set of features there needs to be a good game. And, unfortunately, actual gameplay is I Was an Atomic Mutant's worst part.

In the end, I Was An Atomic Mutant! is a pure arcade game, with a great concept and tons of humor. However, I couldn't help but feel disappointed that the rich universe wasn't used for something more ambitious. I had a blast smashing things in the beginning, but after 25 levels, it all starts to look the same, and without a central scoreboard, it's hard to get excited about doing it again and again. The budget price of $20 might make it appealing to some, but even then, many gamers may find Atomic's fun has an extremely short half-life.

Canopy games set out to create something unique and entertaining, and they’ve succeeded. This title is full of dramatic flair and humor, but the truth is that when the humor gets old the gameplay grows stale quickly. At the end of the day, there simply isn’t enough to keep monsters on their destructive path. By about the 10th level, players will gain an overwhelming “been there done that” sensation, even with the sighting of a new human weapon, which is almost always a near carbon copy of early-stage weapons with more powerful results. Atomic Mutant is a fun game that could have been better if Canopy took extra steps to keep it new and exciting. An auto-level generator would have worked wonders for this title, or simply giving each monster a different area to destroy instead of the same bland desert cityscape over and over again. As it stands, Atomic Mutant is hard not to recommend simply because it offers a kind of fun seldom seen in its price range.

The game lasts for about four or five hours and you can always come back to it if you need to destroy something. While the graphics are old, the explosions are nice and the human cries for help have a satisfying touch to them. This game was more fun than I expected and it is worth about five times as much as I paid for it in Germany.

Overall this game had so much potential, its just that Canopy didn’t capitalize on that potential. This was the first game to take a stab at brining the classic monsters of the 50’s to life. For that Canopy deserves credit. The enemy selection was quite a pleasant surprise, with 15 different enemies to choose from. It would have been nice to see some more monster characters to choose from though. The games potential was crushed by the poor graphics, short duration and pathetic city design. It was unfortunate that Canopy could not invest a few months more effort in the game, but that is too be expected for a budget game. If you are looking for a quick fix of classic monster mayhem, then this is the game for you; at the same time, if you want a good quality monster sim, you better look elsewhere.